| 1 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 2 | [[folder:Pop]] |
| 3 | * Bobby Darin's 1959 cover of "Mack The Knife" from the 1928 German operetta "The Threepenny Opera" was a huge, finger-snapping, big-band swinging hit ... about a gangster and the murders he commits. |
| 4 | ** One skit in Series/{{The Muppet Show}} made this literal by having Sam The Eagle complain about Doctor Teeth covering the song for this reason, and Doctor Teeth explaining to him that it’s all metaphorical. |
| 5 | * Music/{{Prince}}'s title track from 1981's "Controversy". A ridiculously catchy Pop-Funk/Electro-Funk song about myths, hoaxes, and mentioned controversy about the singer. |
| 6 | ** "1999", an upbeat song about nuclear war. |
| 7 | ** "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man", an upbeat song about a woman trying to make the narrator into a ReplacementGoldfish for a lost lover. |
| 8 | * "Macarena" by Los del Río is a very groovy and happy dance-pop song that managed to be a DanceSensation. While the English-language lyrics are vaguely BreakupSong-sounding, the Spanish-language lyrics tell the story of a woman who cheats on her boyfriend while he's being drafted to the army. |
| 9 | * Music/WhitneyHouston even manages to sneak onto this list. One of her chart toppers, "Saving All My Love" may sound like a sweet, romantic ballad...but one good listen will have you realize that she was singing about having love for a man who's in a committed relationship, just waiting for the day he leaves his significant other. |
| 10 | * "Oasis" by Music/TheDresdenDolls. Both the sound of the song and most of the video are over-the-top happy and poppy, while the lyrics tell the story of how songwriter Amanda Palmer was date raped. This trope was played so well, that The Dresden Dolls got a lot of hate from the MoralGuardians for "making a joke" out of rape, even if it was Palmer's own. The trope is taken up to eleven even in the lyrics, because the focal point of the song isn't even about the rape. It's really about the girl writing fan mail to the band, Oasis, with her date rape being only a mildly important secondary story. |
| 11 | * Music/KatyPerry: |
| 12 | ** "Self Inflicted" is about a girl in a bad relationship that can't end it for whatever reason. The tune is upbeat, but one may interpet the tune as [[FridgeBrilliance what the singer is pretending to feel, while the lyrics are how the singer really feels]]. |
| 13 | ** "Chained To The Rhythm": A catchy dance pop song about how we're distracting ourselves from the problems of the world by mindlessly dancing to catchy pop songs. |
| 14 | * "The A Team" by Music/EdSheeran. Sounds like a sweet little folk melody...with lyrics about drug abuse, prostitution, and death. |
| 15 | * A specialty of Music/MelanieMartinez's. She has a talent for mixing sweet-sounding, catchy tunes with chilling lyrics. Special mention goes to Sippy Cup, a mellow, melodic song about an alcoholic mother who murders her cheating husband and ''puts cough syrup in her daughter's sippy cup.'' Jesus. |
| 16 | * "The Honeythief" by 1980s OneHitWonder Hipsway is about a DirtyOldMan praying on an innocent, underage girl. It's also [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cra7-Uw6X6Y&ab_channel=Hipsway an incredibly dancable]] {{Earworm}} that will be stuck in your head for a week. |
| 17 | * Music/MarinaDiamandis is possibly the queen of this trope. The most prominent examples come from her second album, ''[[NewSoundAlbum Electra Heart]]'', an electropop piece about the stereotypes of females within American pop culture, from the point of view of a dead-eyed celebrity named Electra Heart. Special mention goes to "Living Dead", a beat-dropping dance song about how Electra only feels alive when she pretends she's dead, and "Fear and Loathing", a soft, twinkling tune about how Electra no longer wants to feel as though she is constantly exploding with self-loathing and terror. |
| 18 | ** Oh No! from her first album, an upbeat new wave-ish song, is definitely the worst case. Throughout Electra Heart most of the lyrical dissonance is clear. Oh No! is about Marina having absolutely nobody in the entire world who loves her due to her own ruthless ambition; she exclaims 'Oh No!' when she realises she has become the shallow pop diva she always wanted to be, crossing the DespairEventHorizon. It is all framed as a retro self-empowerment bop. |
| 19 | * A lot of twee, parochial-sounding British pop songs from the 60s that are sometimes labeled as [[http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/toytown1.htm "toytown pop"]] feature lyrical dissonance as one of its greatest strengths, from the genre codifying [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN0aNbLJSW0 Grocer Jack]] to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ5AbpoHxwY Glasshouse Green, Splinter Red]] which tells of a grisly death. |
| 20 | ** Possibly the greatest ever use of lyrical dissonance in 60's tweepop is Music/WhitePlains 'achingly' gorgeous "When You Are A King", a lushly romantic tune.... about a boy who is about to discover that as he grows up, life isn't going to owe him a thing, and his family isn't always going to be there when he grows up. May also double as TearJerker. |
| 21 | * The [[TheCoverChangesTheMeaning Ace of Base cover]] [[OlderThanYouThink of the Tina Turner song]] "Don't Turn Around". |
| 22 | ** The Aswad version from the late 1980s is even more upbeat, having set it to a reggae beat. |
| 23 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTsVJ1PsnMs Vamos a la playa by Righeira]] a poppy italian (but sung in Spanish) summer hit in Europe of the early [[TheEighties Eighties]]. On the surface, it's a poppy summer song; the lyrics are about [[https://lyricstranslate.com/en/vamos-la-playa-lets-go-beach.html the aftermath of nuclear war.]] |
| 24 | ** Their other big and equally poppy hit, "No Tengo Dinero", literally translates to "I have no money". |
| 25 | * Gruppo Italiano's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbtd2gRMB_E Tropicana]]" came out in the same summer as "Vamos a la playa" and is as dark as that one beneath the happy calypso-inspired melody. The lyrics are about a dream wherein a small Caribbean town is destroyed [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill at the same time]] by an erupting volcano, a hurricane and an ''atomic explosion''. And what's worse, nobody seems to really care. It's actually a metaphor on how TV/ads make people dumb and brainwash them. |
| 26 | * La Rappresentante Di Lista's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxer4GwV1sc Ciao Ciao]]" (Bye Bye) came out 40 years after the above ones and is another Italian example of a poppy catchy single with dark lyrics, in this case a world war and the literal end of the world. |
| 27 | * "LDN" by Lily Allen borders on a LampshadeHanging. It's an upbeat song about how the back alleys in London are nowhere near as nice as the rest of the city... |
| 28 | ** The music video lampshades the lampshade. In it, everything is all bright and perky and cheery as Lily goes skipping along-- at least until she's out of range, when everything reverts to its normal twisted self. |
| 29 | ** Quite a few of Lily Allen's songs are like that. "Smile" is about a girl systematically ruining her cheating ex's life, "Alfie" is about her brother doing drugs... |
| 30 | *** Perhaps most disturbingly, "The Fear" seems to contain references to her miscarriage. |
| 31 | *** "Smile" also implies that the stress of the break up results in her [[AxeCrazy losing it]], leading to the decision to systematically ruin his life. |
| 32 | ----> "See you messed up my mental health, I was quite unwell..." |
| 33 | ** Basically every single song on the first album "Alright Still" consisted of sugar-sweet pop with bitter and cynical lyrics (Exception: "Littlest Things"). She broadened her style in later albums but it remained a theme. From "The Fear". |
| 34 | --->I don't know what's right and what's real anymore\ |
| 35 | I don't know what I'm meant to feel anymore\ |
| 36 | When do you think it will all become clear \ |
| 37 | 'Cause I'm being taken over by the fear |
| 38 | ** "Not Fair" is a rather upbeat, country-style song about how she is in a relationship with a man who is quite nice but unable to satisfy her sexually. |
| 39 | ** "He Wasn't There" is a very bouncy pop song about her absentee father... |
| 40 | ** Also "Fuck You" is a very upbeat, cheery song where Lily [[ReasonYouSuckSpeech chews up intolerant people]] while dropping total of about 30 [[ClusterFBomb F-bombs]] |
| 41 | *** Made even more dissonant in many censored versions, in which the word fuck is replaced by a happy little twinkle or ding. |
| 42 | ** "Everything's Just Wonderful" is a very sarcastic song with a happy beat |
| 43 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PrQx2pVYiU Song For A Boy]] is cheery sounding little number that talks about all of the reasons the singer hates the titular boy. |
| 44 | * Music/{{Aqualung}}'s song "Strange and Beautiful" sounds like a nice romantic ballad, but then you listen to the lyrics. |
| 45 | -->I've been watching your world from afar, |
| 46 | -->I've been trying to be where you are, |
| 47 | -->And I've been secretly falling apart, |
| 48 | -->I'll see. |
| 49 | -->To me, you're strange and you're beautiful, |
| 50 | -->You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see, |
| 51 | -->You turn every head but you don't see me. |
| 52 | -->I'll put a spell on you, |
| 53 | -->You'll fall asleep and I'll put a spell on you. |
| 54 | -->And when I wake you, |
| 55 | -->I'll be the first thing you see, |
| 56 | -->And you'll realise that you love me. |
| 57 | * Very few people seem to realize that Music/JustinBieber's pop mega-hit "Baby", with its insipid yet admittedly very catchy, dance-y melody and chorus actually talks about a lost love who broke his heart and never came back, as the singer falls into a deep depression. The music video doesn't make this clear at all though. |
| 58 | -->My first love broke my heart for the first time, |
| 59 | -->And I was like |
| 60 | -->Baby, baby, baby ohhh |
| 61 | -->Like baby, baby, baby [[BigNo noooo]] |
| 62 | -->Like baby, baby, baby ohhhh |
| 63 | -->I thought you'd always be mine, mine |
| 64 | -->(...) |
| 65 | -->And I wanna play it cool, But I'm losin' you |
| 66 | -->I'll buy you anything, I'll buy you any ring |
| 67 | -->And I'm in pieces, Baby fix me |
| 68 | -->And just shake me til' you wake me from this bad dream |
| 69 | -->I'm going down, down, down, dooown |
| 70 | ** "Love Yourself" sounds like a nice, soft love song at first, but then you listen to the lyrics: it's a man giving a ReasonYouSuckSpeech to his abusive ex-girlfriend. Bonus FridgeBrilliance with the title and chorus; just think, what's a different way of saying "love yourself"? |
| 71 | --->But when you told me that you hated my friends |
| 72 | --->The only problem was with you and not them |
| 73 | --->And every time you told me my opinion was wrong |
| 74 | --->And tried to make me forget where I came from |
| 75 | --->(...) |
| 76 | --->'Cause if you like the way you look that much |
| 77 | --->Oh baby you should go and love yourself |
| 78 | --->And if you think that I'm still holdin' on to somethin' |
| 79 | --->You should go and love yourself |
| 80 | * "The Feeling", an unashamedly cheesy pop song …with lyrics about loneliness, loss and frustration. Although it's then used in the reverse form by their songs "Strange" (a ''downbeat'' song with a positive message that can be summarized as "don't let the bastards grind you down just because you're different, because there are people who will always love you.") and "Same Old Stuff" (equally downbeat song addressing a fretful partner who's worried about the people who say their relationship won't work out). |
| 81 | ** The song "Without You" is about the Virginia Tech massacre. This is not self-evident. |
| 82 | * Music/MichaelJackson's "Smooth Criminal" from ''Music/{{Bad}}'' is an upbeat song with a nice rhythm and a cool video, about a woman being murdered in her apartment by a criminal she was in a relationship with. |
| 83 | ** The lines "Annie, are you okay?" and "mouth-to-mouth resuscitation" sound like they're talking to a "Resusci-Anne" CPR training dummy. And of course, she's not okay, she's dead. |
| 84 | *** If you talk to some people, it's about a girl who was raped ''and'' murdered. |
| 85 | ** "Heal the World" delivers the line "there are people dying" in the jolliest damn tone you ever heard. |
| 86 | * "It's Not Unusual" by Music/TomJones has a tune that swings in Jones' usual manner, but tells the story of a man with an unrequited love who suffers jealousy when he sees the woman he desires with other men. |
| 87 | ** Well, he does say "I wanna die", which clues a few people in. |
| 88 | ** "Delilah" is a bright, upbeat sounding song with a very catchy chorus. Then you suddenly realise that you're singing about a man who stabbed his cheating girlfriend and is asking for forgiveness. |
| 89 | *** The police are battering down the door as he begs her dead body for forgiveness. The song is, in fact, very dark. But people still sing it at holiday camps because the tune's nice. |
| 90 | * "Walking On Broken Glass", by Annie Lennox, is a cheerful song about the suffering that follows a bad breakup. |
| 91 | * The Killers' "Mr. Brightside," a catchy dance tune, is apparently about a stalker. In reality, the singer is actually being suspicious of his girlfriend. |
| 92 | ** The lyric "And it's all in my head, but.." makes this misunderstanding evident. |
| 93 | ** The music videos for this song and "Miss Atomic Bomb" back this up. |
| 94 | *** Still, with this in mind, the song is actually just as sad. |
| 95 | * Music/{{Madonna}}'s "Material Girl" from ''Music/LikeAVirgin'', on the surface a jaunty enjoyable pop song. The lyrics however refer to exploiting men for money and were in fact intended as a sarcastic jab at the ruthlessly material vibe of the 1980's. The Lyrical Dissonance makes the MisaimedFandom for the song quite easy to understand. |
| 96 | ** Amusingly, this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtiDPvS4FEU anime music video]] fits the lyrics well, by featuring ''Manga/{{Ranma|OneHalf}}''[='=]s [[ManipulativeBitch Nabiki Tendo]]. |
| 97 | * "Better the Devil You Know" by Music/KylieMinogue is about going back to the guy who treated you badly because "better the devil you know" (than the devil you don't). Music/NickCave called it the most disturbing song he had heard, in part because of Kylie's innocent image. |
| 98 | ** Most of her earlier, released songs are sad when you listen to the lyrics. Don't let the upbeat 80's pop trick you. A good example is "I should be so lucky", a super poppy song about a girl who's in UnrequitedLove and refuses to do anything to change it. |
| 99 | ** When popular Australian cabaret artist Michael Griffiths staged his one-man tribute show, ''Lucky: the songs of Kylie Minogue'', he performed her song 'Hand on your heart' as a stripped-back piano ballad, (to illustrate her state of mind after her sudden breakup with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence) and it's absolutely ''heartwrenching''. |
| 100 | * The ever-popular "Dragostea Din Tei" by Romanian boy band Music/OZone (better known as [[MemeticMutation the Numa Numa song and accompanying dance]]) is quite upbeat, happy, and danceable. However, the lyrics to the famous chorus basically translate to "You want to leave but you don't want to take me." The song is really all about his ex-girlfriend who won't take him back. Its "sequel", "Despre Tine", is of a similar vein, being happy and upbeat and yet complaining of how she won't answer his text messages. |
| 101 | * "Luka" by Music/SuzanneVega is a peppy little song... about an abused little boy. |
| 102 | * Andrew Gold, the artist who gave us [[Series/TheGoldenGirls "Thank You For Being A Friend"]], is also known for a similarly insanely cheery tune called "Lonely Boy". [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Yeah.]] |
| 103 | * [[Music/NellieMcKay Nellie [=McKay's=]]] song "Won't U Please B Nice?" is a cheerful, perky love song being sung by a {{Yandere}} to the object of her deadly affection. |
| 104 | -->"If you would sit |
| 105 | -->Oh so close to me |
| 106 | -->That would be nice |
| 107 | -->Like it's supposed to be |
| 108 | -->If you don't, I'll slit your throat |
| 109 | -->So won't u please b nice?" |
| 110 | * "Hot Child In The City" by Nick Gilder is a 70's hit pop song that has an innocent and catchy pop tune that at first glance you might it's a love song about a man making romantic advances to a woman that he's attracted to, but the lyrics are actually about a teenage girl who walks out of the fire and into the cooking pot, in which she runs away from home due to a troubled home life and gets involved in prostitution. The song is based on Gilder's experiences of witnessing child prostitution. |
| 111 | * "The Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri-las is a driving 60's rock tune about a pair of [[TeenageDeathSongs teenage]] StarCrossedLovers, ending with the boyfriend dying in a motorcycle accident immediately after their breakup. |
| 112 | * Everything But The Girl's "Hatfield 1980," a catchy trip-hop tune about a girl living in a seedy neighborhood. The title refers to the first time she was mugged and stabbed on the way home, and presumably it's happened several more times since ("Hatfield, 1980, I've seen my first knife, my first ambulance ride"). Off the same album is "Downhill Racer," another more house-ish sounding song about a famous artist on the decline. |
| 113 | * Delaney & Bonnie's "Superstar", famously covered by Music/{{Carpenters}}, is about a naive groupie running into the musician she had a fling with, only for him to not remember her. Those versions sound fittingly melancholic—but the covers by Music/LutherVandross and Ruben Studdard are much more cheerful. (And then Music/SonicYouth's version pushes back into full depressive.) |
| 114 | * Music/NeilSedaka's "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" is a cheerful-sounding song about the pain of breaking up. |
| 115 | ** But he did a soulful, serious remake of it in 1975. |
| 116 | * "Lucky" by Music/BritneySpears isn't as sweet as most people think. It ended up being an eerie prophecy regarding Britney's own career woes: |
| 117 | ---> She's so lucky |
| 118 | ---> She's a star |
| 119 | ---> But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart thinking |
| 120 | ---> If there's nothing missing in my life |
| 121 | ---> Then why do these tears come at night? |
| 122 | ---> Lost in an image, in a dream |
| 123 | ---> But there's no one there to wake her up |
| 124 | * On a similar note, fans have never really decided whether Britney's album track "Unusual You" is uplifting or upsetting. |
| 125 | ---> Break my heart, I expect you to |
| 126 | ---> So why haven't you? |
| 127 | ---> Sweet surprise I could get used to, unusual you |
| 128 | ---> Been so many things when I was someone else: |
| 129 | ---> Boxer in the ring, trying to defend myself |
| 130 | ---> And a private eye to see what's going on, now that's long gone |
| 131 | ---> When I'm with you I can just be myself |
| 132 | ---> Shocking cause I, never knew love like this, could exist |
| 133 | * In the same vein as the above, Series/HannahMontana's ''Super Girl'' |
| 134 | --->When I feel all alone and nobody knows |
| 135 | --->Still gotta smile for a while, I can't let it show |
| 136 | --->Dry my tears, have no fears and when I'm |
| 137 | --->(And when I'm) |
| 138 | --->Backstage feeling down and the lights come on |
| 139 | --->No time to worry, gotta hurry |
| 140 | --->Time to sing my song, gonna shake it off |
| 141 | --->(Shake it off) |
| 142 | --->Strike a pose |
| 143 | --->(Strike a pose) |
| 144 | --->Snap my fingers just like that |
| 145 | --->Don't get what I want and that's a fact |
| 146 | --->Snap my fingers just like that |
| 147 | --->Don't get what I want just 'cause I want it |
| 148 | ** It's all surprisingly disturbing. Coming from relatively new stars... |
| 149 | * Music/RodStewart's "Young Turks" is a power-driven dance tune that's easy to sing... as long as you don't mind singing about a pair of [[StarcrossedLovers down-on-their-luck teenagers]] who ran away from home to live a hardscrabble life rather than allow their parents to break them up. Sure, it's romantic in a twisted way, but being teen parents with no marketable skills sucks. |
| 150 | * The Canadian band The Pettit Project, known for their happy love songs such as "99 Lives" (about a guy who is trying to get the girl of his dreams but just can't get it right, but keeps trying because he knows he will succeed), made an album called "6 Week Summer Vacation in Hell". The entire album is about six weeks of the summer of 2004 when "the angels of heartbreak, loss, and death simultaneously swooped down on The Pettit Project campsite, trapped us in our cozy sleeping bags, and swung us as hard as they could into a nearby tree". The liner notes then go on to say "We promise that on our next album we'll sing about Free Trade, or Bush or something equally as uninteresting". The notes end with a sentence that makes fun of this very trope, saying "Now go and listen to our sad songs that sound happy, baby". |
| 151 | * "Tragedy" by Music/TheBeeGees. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The name already says a lot, obviously]], but it's still weird to have a very upbeat song with lyrics about a man who's about to cross the DespairEventHorizon after his girlfriend dumps him. |
| 152 | ** "Staying Alive," also by the Bee Gees. It seems like no swaggering TeamPowerWalk is complete without it in pop culture, but the song was written for ''Film/SaturdayNightFever'', and once you get past the opening line about struttin' like a ladies' man, the lyrics become very specific to protagonist Tony Manero's hopeless, depressing situation in the film: |
| 153 | --->''"Life going nowhere... somebody help me..."'' |
| 154 | * Music/BarryManilow has a tendency to make even the most depressing BreakupSong sound like a SillyLoveSong and a MurderBallad sound cheerful and upbeat: |
| 155 | ** "Copacabana". Peppy little ditty that happens to be a MurderBallad about a woman losing her boyfriend in a bar brawl and having an alcoholic meltdown that she never recovers from, returning to the same bar, night after night, long after the old crowd has grown up and moved on. |
| 156 | *** Particularly peculiar was when the song was acted out by muppets on ''The Muppet Show'' when Liza Minelli was the guest star. |
| 157 | ** "Bobbie Lee", an upbeat, cheerful, poppy song about a teenage runaway who ends up living on the streets and prostituting herself: |
| 158 | -->''She's got this picture of her brother,\ |
| 159 | That she took when she left home.\ |
| 160 | She rolled her hair up like her mother,\ |
| 161 | With her mother's ivory comb.\ |
| 162 | She was sweet sixteen last Easter,\ |
| 163 | But she knows how to treat you right.\ |
| 164 | Tomorrow, she's gonna be in the movies,.\ |
| 165 | But man, you won't forget tonight!'' |
| 166 | ** The lyrics to “Can’t Smile Without You” are about how good it felt to fall in love - and how miserable it made the singer to no longer be with the person he’s still in love with. Even the sad parts of the lyrics, though, manage to sound romantic and sweet when Manilow sings them. |
| 167 | * "Run, Joey, Run" by David Geddes suffers from this |
| 168 | * Big Fun's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9VrSxpSuVg "Handful of Promises"]]. You think the poppy and catchy song these three dance and sing in the rain is a cheery one? Check out the lyrics, where a guy complains about [[ThenotSecret everyone but him knowing]] that his ex-girlfriend cheated on him. |
| 169 | --> Should've been running |
| 170 | --> I know it sounds funny |
| 171 | --> I was such a fool cause I couldn't see it coming. |
| 172 | --> Just a handful of promises you gave me |
| 173 | --> A pocketful of dreams that just won't do |
| 174 | --> How can I go on with nothing to live on but a handful of promises? |
| 175 | * Music/{{Hanson}}'s "[=MMMBop=]". A catchy, danceble, uptempo song by the looks of it, one of the happiest-sounding songs of TheNineties, but it's really about relationships and the unpredicticability of friendships. |
| 176 | -->You have so many relationships in this life \ |
| 177 | Only one or two will last \ |
| 178 | You go through all the pain and strife \ |
| 179 | Then you turn your back, and they're gone so fast... |
| 180 | ** Hanson have quite a few of these. There's "[=Where's The Love=]" which is ridiculously upbeat but actually about a relationship falling apart |
| 181 | ---> We're segregating, consiousness is fading \ |
| 182 | You're thinking that it's me you're foolin' \ |
| 183 | Where's the right in all of our fighting? \ |
| 184 | Look at what we're doing |
| 185 | ** "[=If Only=]" is just as, if not more, upbeat, but the lyrics talk abouty a guy who's desperately in love with a girl and almost paralysed by a fear of rejection and unable to tell her how he feels. |
| 186 | * "Just Dance", by Music/LadyGaga. It has an upbeat, really catchy, really danceable sound. The narrator of the song is a woman in a club who is so completely and totally disoriented with drunkenness that she can't see straight, or remember where she is. Later in the song, she gets hit on by (and possibly, has casual sex with) a sleazy-sounding guy. |
| 187 | ** Check out Website/TheOtherWiki's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paparazzi_(Lady_Gaga_song) article]] on [[LoonyFan "Paparazzi"]]. |
| 188 | ** From her second album, we have to mention "Telephone", a upbeat dance number dedicated to say "stop calling me, I don't want to talk to you, like, ''never''", and "Bad Romance", her ode to either dysfunctional relationships or awful romance novels. Maybe both. |
| 189 | ** And let's not forget "Dance In The Dark"! It's an upbeat''ish'' song about a girl who has a boyfriend who calls her a mess and a tramp. Even better for an example are the first lines in the song, "Silicone. Saline. Poison. Inject me." Basically, it's talking about breast implants and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botox Botox]] injections. |
| 190 | ** "Eh Eh Nothing Else I Can Say". It has the sweetest beat of all her songs and translates to 'I don't think we're meant for each other, sorry, bye bye.' |
| 191 | ** Gaga has her "Christmas Tree" song which sounds like a normal Christmas song, upbeat and catchy, but is about sex. |
| 192 | ** In "Scheiße", the sense of timidity and fear in the lyrics is, well, limited to the lyrics. |
| 193 | ** "Judas" is a seemingly upbeat song that uses [[Literature/TheBible Judas' betrayal of Jesus]] as a metaphor for a girl who is in love with a man who betrayed her. |
| 194 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okq8xHrIZ8I&ob=av2e 'Hair']] as well. |
| 195 | ** "Monster" has a pretty great beat and is rather bouncy until you listen to the uncensored version and realise she is singing about a girl who was date raped. |
| 196 | * Jonah Lewie's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_the_Cavalry "Stop the Cavalry"]] is a bouncy novelty pop song that gets frequent radio play at Christmas time because was released in December, happens to [[HomeByChristmas mention "Christmas" in the chorus]], and has some SnowySleighBells. The song's protagonist represents the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Soldier Unknown Soldier]], and the lyrics consist of the woebegone trooper complaining of freezing cold, exhaustion, and missing his sweetheart at home. |
| 197 | * Music/{{ABBA}} are known for this. Most notable is "Mamma Mia" (The Song), which is a cheerful tune about a woman who repeatedly re-enters a terrible relationship because she can't think of anything better to do. This is less true of "Waterloo", though the choice of metaphor did draw some criticism from some European interviewers asking how they could "sing an upbeat song about a battle where thousands of people were killed." HilarityEnsues. |
| 198 | ** Heck, "Ring, Ring" catchy upbeat tune about someone waiting for a call they know isn't coming... Incidentally, Swedish music ''loves'' this trope. |
| 199 | ** "SOS" is very bouncy and catchy, but the lyrics are about a couple growing apart. |
| 200 | --->''You seem so far away though you are standing near\ |
| 201 | You make me feel alive, but something's died, I fear'' |
| 202 | ** "Knowing Me, Knowing You" is an upbeat breakup song. |
| 203 | ** "Angeleyes" is a joyful-sounding song about worrying that your abusive ex will treat his new girlfriend poorly. |
| 204 | ** "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" is an enthusiastic song about feeling bored and like your life isn't as good as the lives you see on tv. |
| 205 | ** "When All Is Said and Done" is one calm and content-sounding breakup song. |
| 206 | ** On the other side of the coin, from the tail end of their career, "The Day Before You Came" tells the sweet tale of a woman who only came alive when her true love came into her life, to ''unbelievably'' mournful and depressing music. |
| 207 | *** In fact "The Day Before You Came" can be interpreted as something much darker if you consider that the person could well have ruined her life rather than improved it. Nothing in the song explicitly mentions love, and the way she says 'I must have' indicates she might have blanked out the events of that day completely due to the trauma.[[note]]The Blancmange version actually sounds more like the upbeat interpretation was meant.[[/note]] |
| 208 | *** And their 1982 single "Under Attack" has upbeat, wistful music despite being about a stalker. |
| 209 | *** Both "Under Attack" and "The Day Before You Came" are considered to be veiled metaphors for troubles between the band members that led to their breakup. |
| 210 | ** "I'm a Marionette" has a typical ABBA-style beat, but the lyrics sound like they were written by Music/AliceCooper. |
| 211 | ** "Super Trouper" is a cheerful-sounding song about how lonely it is to be famous. |
| 212 | ** "Fernando" may sound like a love song at first, but it's actually about two buddies remembering a night during war. |
| 213 | ** "Happy New Year" has an anthemic feel and is a staple in new year celebrations around the world, despite being about how foolish we are claiming that the new year will be any better than the last one and how we just use the transition as an excuse to party. |
| 214 | ** "If It Wasn't for the Nights" counters its bouncy, upbeat chords with lyrics about how the narrator "''loses [her] temper ten times a day''" and fears "''the time when shadows start to fall / Sitting here alone and staring at the wall''" due to her[[note]]His, actually... like so many other songs from this period, it reflected Bjorn Ulvaeus's worsening marriage[[/note]] anxiety about coming back home to his decaying relationship[[note]]The band wisely dumped this as the lead single from ''Voulez-Vous'' in favor of "Chiquitita" after they finished the latter track[[/note]] |
| 215 | ** Special mention should go to "Dancing Queen", which Angus Harrison at VICE Magazine dubbed [[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gvnwx4/abba-dancing-queen-essay "The Saddest Record Ever Made."]] Harrison explains that the song, though cheery-sounding, isn't being sung ''by'' the titular character, who's "young and sweet, only seventeen"; rather, it is sung ''to'' her by a middle-aged woman who is watching her on the dance floor and remembering that wonderful time when she, too, was the Dancing Queen...only to [[GrowingUpSucks grow old and lose her youthful hopes and dreams.]] To quote the article: "It is a song that says the best has been. The best now belongs to somebody else..." This interpretation is supported by WordOfGod from Anni-Frid Lyngstad, one of ABBA's members; she reportedly cried when she first heard it and remarked "It's one of those songs that goes straight to your heart." |
| 216 | * "My Interpretation" by Music/{{Mika}} is a break up song that is extremely catchy and cheery. |
| 217 | ** "Lollipop", the cheerful happy song of how much LoveHurts and will wreck your life, which honestly sounds like it's being sung by [[Film/{{Psycho}} Norman Bates.]] Yay? |
| 218 | ** Hell, half the songs Mika does are like this. "Love Today" is a song with the narrator calling women despicable even imply some to be whores. |
| 219 | -->Girl dresses like a kid for fun /Licks her lips like there's something on 'em /Tries to tell you life has just begun /When you know she's getting something other than love from another. |
| 220 | ** "Relax" ends up with a recording of a woman telling how her future husband left her at the altar, then how she lost an eye to a bombing and how she will never marry noone ever anymore. |
| 221 | ** "Elle me dit" is about a mother worrying that her son may throw his life away, wasting his time on the Internet among others things. Said son ignores all of her advices, and seems to only cheerish the thought that she may die one day. It's hard to say if the son is a UngratefulBastard or if his mother is [[MyBelovedSmother "overprotective"]]. |
| 222 | * "Since Yesterday" by Strawberry Switchblade sounds like it'll be a cute, happy song. The chorus is: "And as we sit here alone looking for a reason to go on, it's so clear that all we have now are our thoughts of yesterday". A common interpretation is that it's about depression and/or suicide - the band themselves have said it's about living under the threat of nuclear war. |
| 223 | ** the melody of "Trees and Flowers" is straight out of a love song; it's about agoraphobia. |
| 224 | * Garou's "Criminel" is probably the grooviest, most kickass song you'll ever hear about [[{{Squick}} ephebophilia]]. |
| 225 | * The Records' "Starry Eyes" is a cheerfully sung jangly power pop song that's actually a TakeThat directed at a former manager who suddenly left to take a vacation while the band were still on tour in France. |
| 226 | * "C'est une belle journee" by {{Mylene Farmer}} has a bright cheery melody and the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY0OY0LbjeU animated music video]] is done in funny, Exupery-esque style. Gosh, even the name of the song translates: "It's a beautiful day". And the lyrics? [[http://www.allthelyrics.com/forum/french-lyrics-translation/85400-mylene-farmer-cest-une-belle-journee.html#post696153 Here they are]], strange and unsettling ranting of an unknown person who seemingly - her intentions are vague but still recognizable - prepares for suicide. |
| 227 | ** And that's just one song out of many. Practically her entire career runs on this trope. |
| 228 | * Music/TakeThatBand, of all bands, seem to manage this one in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Y9D4szj3c "The Garden"]]. Sounds like a swooshy, twinkly love song, seems to reference some kind of ecological disaster - 'we could hear the sound of sirens all around us, and the scent of burning oil was in the air' - and contains a gloriously stirring middle eight with these lyrics: |
| 229 | -->Everyone, everyone |
| 230 | -->Can you hear the soldiers coming? |
| 231 | -->Everyone, everyone |
| 232 | -->Every man and every woman |
| 233 | -->We all fall in the end, we're just miracles of matter |
| 234 | * K. [=McCarty=]'s cover of "Hate Song" by Music/DanielJohnston: The original already has a pretty chipper melody for being about leaving someone and hoping they'll commit suicide over it, but her version adds accordion, tuba, and an off-key group vocal, making it sound like a DrunkenSong. There's something sort of disturbing about hearing a crowd of people gleefully singing lyrics like "You'll contemplate suicide with a knife one night", and "No one will shed a tear, no one will be there to find you dead". |
| 235 | * "Bourgeois Shangri-La", by Miss Li. It was used in a commercial for iPods. It's about a StepfordSmiler who desperately wants to escape her shallow life. |
| 236 | * There is a Russian pop song by Natasha Korolyova, called "Malenkaya Strana" (The Little Country). Then somebody made a remix with different lyrics, and the song became "Yadernaya Voyna" (The Nuclear War), about nukes, mutants, ash, and death... sung in a little girl's voice to the same cutesy tune. |
| 237 | * Music/{{Shakira}}'s "[[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shakira/estoyaqui.html Estoy Aqui]]" fits. This lighthearted, poppish tune fools many English-speaking listeners into thinking that it's a happy song... that is, until they look up the translation and discover that it's actually... an incredibly sad break-up song. |
| 238 | ** She used to do some of those during her early career. From the same album, "[[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shakira/piesdescalzossuenosblancos.html Pies Descalzos]]" is a direct complain about moral hypocrisy, and "[[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shakira/sequieresemata.html Se quiere, se mata]]" music is too upbeat for a song about an aborting teenager. |
| 239 | ** More fun from her later albums: "[[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shakira/tedejomadrid.html Te dejo Madrid]]" is quite poppy, but the lyrics are about her leaving someone she loves dearly but which relationship is crumbling horribly. "[[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shakira/sitevas.html Si te vas]]" is an ObsessionSong where the lyrics can reduce to "[[WomanScorned You want to leave me]]? Fine! Just don't back to me when you inevitably bore of her!", but from the melody you wouldn't guess that on a first listening. And one of her signature songs, "[[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/shakira/ciegasordamuda.html Ciega, sordomuda]]", probably the most festive-sounding of her songs, is about how her actual love interest leaves her "bruta, ciega, sordomuda/torpe, traste, testaruda" (dumb, blind, deaf mute/clumsy, messed, stubborn) because of how head over heels she feels, but the lyrics implies that the guy isn't that into her and she wants to forget him and move over but is unable to do so. |
| 240 | * France Gall and Music/SergeGainsbourg's "Les sucettes" is a lovely, childish song about a girl who likes lollipops. Except... |
| 241 | --> Annie loves lollipops |
| 242 | --> Aniseed lollipops |
| 243 | --> When the barley sugar |
| 244 | --> Flavoured with aniseed |
| 245 | --> Slides down Annie's throat |
| 246 | --> She is in Paradise |
| 247 | ** But you probably won't know that until you hit puberty. The song sounds like a lullaby and you have to really pay attention to some of the verbs used to get that the dirty subtext is in fact text. |
| 248 | ** Note that apparently, France Gall herself had no idea what the song was really about, making it a rare case of the singer herself not catching the lyrical dissonance (then again, it was written by Gainsbourg so she should've known better. Granted she herself was an innocent young teenager when she sang it. When someone finally informed her about the DoubleEntendre she was so shocked and angry that she never ever performed the song again. ). |
| 249 | *** Not only was it written by Gainsbourg, practically every TV performance she did of it used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-iysdFu_TQ decidedly odd costumes for the dancers]]... |
| 250 | *** Ah... aniseed is a common confectionary flavouring agent, with a taste very similar to liquorice. |
| 251 | * Sun's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eenh9i_pHeQ Gone]]" is a happy, spunky technopop dance song...about a girl whose boyfriend has left her and there's absolutely no way she could ever get him back no matter what she did. |
| 252 | * "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjoPAxxjUsc Rich Kids]]" by Washington is a very upbeat song about how she hates the rich-kid rave culture. |
| 253 | * Music/TearsForFears: |
| 254 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1ZvPSpLxCg The original version]] of "Mad World" is an upbeat-sounding tune about depression and how meaningless life is. The [[CoveredUp more well-known]] cover [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Ig2JJRpdo performed by Gary Jules]] for ''Film/DonnieDarko'' drops all pretenses by using [[SofterAndSlowerCover slow, somber piano and cello]]. |
| 255 | ** The cheerful and danceable melody of "The Way You Are" juxtaposes the grim lyrics. The song is about a DangerousWorkplace where injuries (and the occasional death) are so frequent that "No one sees and no one cares what gets broken". It's implied that the narrator has prosthetics to replace his missing hands ("These hands are not my hands"). He also mentions the burial of a co-worker who was recently killed at the factory ("Echoing ghost just laid by those who whistle while they work"). |
| 256 | ** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGCdLKXNF3w Everybody Wants to Rule the World]]" sounds so bright and lively that it may take until listening to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVA6sgOpws Lorde's cover]] for someone to realize that it's about threat of [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar nuclear annihilation]] and the widespread misery that desiring power brings, sprinkled with references to ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''. |
| 257 | * "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5iMeJINB8o Storie di tutti i giorni]]" by Riccardo Fogli is a swishy early-eighties Italian pop about a routine, boring life and a time that escapes pointlessly with each coming second. |
| 258 | * "Mr. Watson" by Music/{{Kesha}} starts out very bubbly and innocent-sounding... Only to dive into {{squick}} territory as soon as the third line. It soon becomes clear [[HotForTeacher what the song really is about]]. |
| 259 | * Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" is a peppy doo-wop-styled number about how being broken up with by the titular girl will leave him suicidally depressed. Also, she's cheating on him and lying to him about it, and he still blames himself for the relationship's downward spiral. |
| 260 | --->You're way too beautiful girl\ |
| 261 | That's why it'll never work\ |
| 262 | You'll have me suicidal, suicidal\ |
| 263 | When you say it's over |
| 264 | * Music/HermansHermits' '60s hit "I'm Henry VIII, I Am" is a bouncy, chipper ditty about a guy who just married a BlackWidow. |
| 265 | * ''Toybox'''s songs sound childish in tune, and often have childish lyrics, however the songs are typically quite sexual. |
| 266 | * The Supremes are arguably the masters of this trope. Their saccharine harmonies and upbeat melodies, written by Motown house composers Holland-Dozier-Holland, are in sharp contrast to the typically rather grim lyrics. But you'll never know if you don't pay attention to them. |
| 267 | * Looking Glass' "Brandy". A catchy, upbeat song about a barmaid who spends her days waiting for a sailor she fell in love with, but whose "life, lover and lady" is the sea. It is implied he will never return. |
| 268 | * ''God Laughs'' by Music/DeltaGoodrem, a easy soft pop acoustic focused song about how her life and her view of love was shaken by her parents divorce. |
| 269 | ---> ''It freaks you out when the ground starts shakin'' |
| 270 | ---> ''And everything around you is breaking'' |
| 271 | * Alizeé's "Hey amigo" sounds upbeat and sweet, with her sexy deep voice to top it off. Too bad it's about the misery of a prostitute in Barcelona. |
| 272 | * Eric Hutchinson's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ce6IdWCBPY "Watching You Watch Him"]]. To quote the iTunes description, it "bounces to deceptively cheery acoustic guitar strums and percussive handclaps, but the lyrics belie a cerebral sorrow about unattainable love." |
| 273 | ** It's apparently about the way his wife responds to watching Rafael Nadal's tennis matches----he of the orgasmic grunts and groans as he serves |
| 274 | * Imani Coppola's comeback project, Little Jackie, has a song called "28 Butts", a nicotine-and-whiskey fogged, rambling, barely coherent song about a woman wasting her life, set to a funky, upbeat tune that includes liberal "sha-la-la"s. |
| 275 | * "Ain't We Got Fun" on the surface sounds like a jolly little ditty during TheRoaringTwenties, especially with the Doris Day and Renee Olstead covers (the latter being fittingly used in the 2008 [[Literature/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girl]] film ''Film/KitKittredgeAnAmericanGirl''), but then the 1920 foxtrot's lyrics verge into the hardships of poverty, something most of America would [[HarsherInHindsight experience]] a decade later. |
| 276 | * "Don't Worry, Be Happy" takes advantage of Music/BobbyMcFerrin's considerable talents at a cappella jazz vocals and multitracking to create a song about not worrying and being happy... when your entire life is a massive disaster, collapsing on you all at once, and your only option to avoid going crazy is to ignore everything and [[StepfordSmiler pretend it isn't happening.]] |
| 277 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_the_Morning "Angel of the Morning"]] (most famously, by either [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M84smnktjo Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhGqLF-kfLs The Pretenders]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTzGMEfbnAw Juice Newton]]) is arranged as a slow, sad-sounding song about a last night spent with a lover -- except that the lyrics indicate that the singer has just realized that it's only a one night stand that she jumped into a little overzealously, and that despite being a bit embarrassed thinking she'd get more out of the experience, she's actually pretty okay with that. |
| 278 | * The Boomtown Rats song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7twG_BXZn0w Living In An Island]]" has a very cheery tropical theme, but the lyrics describe people who have committed suicide after being stranded on the island, as well as the methods through which one can kill themselves on an island. |
| 279 | -->''Aren't you glad you live on an island, you can choose your own way to be killed'' |
| 280 | -->''You can jump off a cliff, drown in the sea, or be bashed against the rocks and get split'' |
| 281 | ** Though they're arguably more famous for "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yteMugRAc0 I Don't Like Mondays]]," a cheery, upbeat song inspired by [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer Brenda Ann Spencer]]. |
| 282 | * Music/LanaDelRey: has an extremely dark song called "The Lucky Ones" about how she found a guy who can take her away from a very dark place she's currently in: |
| 283 | --> ''Every now and then, the stars align/Boy and girl meet by the great design/Could it be that you and me are the lucky ones'' |
| 284 | --> ''Everybody told me love was blind/Then I saw your face and you blew my mind/Finally, you and me are the lucky ones this time'' |
| 285 | * The Music/TenThousandManiacs song Candy Everybody Wants sounds like the perfect background music for a car commercial. The lyrics, however, criticize the entertainment industry, and the public's desire for sex and violence. What, for instance, is the titular candy? |
| 286 | -->"If lust and hate is the candy; if love and blood tastes so sweet, then we'll give 'em what they want!" |
| 287 | * "Lorena Bobbitt" by New Zealand singer Aaradhna, which sounds like a '50s jukebox song, but is about a woman ''gruesomely murdering her partner after he cheats on her.''[[note]]Which, in fairness, makes sense if you're familiar with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_Lorena_Bobbitt whom the song is named after]].[[/note]] |
| 288 | * Music/GilbertOSullivan went from a goofy pop singer with a modest niche hit ("Claire") to "Alone Again (Naturally)", a ditty with a catchy beat, slightly melancholy nylon guitar solo, and some of the saddest lyrics imaginable delivered with a light, cheery tone while the narrator describes his intent to jump off a building after [[RunawayBride his intended wife never shows up to the wedding]]. |
| 289 | -->In a little while from now |
| 290 | -->If I'm not feeling any less sour |
| 291 | -->I promised myself |
| 292 | -->I'd treat myself |
| 293 | -->And visit a nearby tower |
| 294 | -->And climbing to the top |
| 295 | -->[[DrivenToSuicide I'll throw myself off]] |
| 296 | -->In an effort to |
| 297 | -->Make it clear to who |
| 298 | -->Ever wants to know what it's like when you're shattered |
| 299 | ** And that's just the first verse. The last verse talks about how the narrator's mother never recovered from her husband's sudden death and simply withered away despite anything the narrator could do, leaving him [[TitleDrop alone again, naturally]]. |
| 300 | -->And at sixty-five years old |
| 301 | -->My mother, God rest her soul |
| 302 | -->Couldn't understand |
| 303 | -->Why the only man |
| 304 | -->She had ever loved had been taken |
| 305 | -->Leaving her to start |
| 306 | -->With a heart |
| 307 | -->So badly broken |
| 308 | -->Despite encouragement from me |
| 309 | -->No words were ever spoken |
| 310 | -->And when she passed away |
| 311 | -->I cried all night and day |
| 312 | -->Alone again |
| 313 | -->Naturally |
| 314 | * The Irish Pop Boyband, Westlife, managed to pull this off with a few songs. One Example: "If I let you go", which is about someone who doesn't want to let his girlfriend go, because it would break his heart. Romantic and all, right? Then we get the lines before every chorus: |
| 315 | -->And once again, I'm thinking about |
| 316 | -->Taking the easy way out |
| 317 | ** And that "easy way out"? Well, it's nothing less than the easy way out of a potential heartbreak: Suicide. Despite that, the song is very up-beat and happy. |
| 318 | ** Another example is "She's Gone" from their Face To Face album. Very up-beat tune with not too happy lyrics. Seriously. Depening on your interpretation, it can either mean he had left her for another girl, she had left him for another man, or he had killed her, which makes the second verse even more fucked up, since the third option makes the second verse imply that she's returned from the dead, possibly as a zombie. Thanksfully, there are more romantic ways to interpret the song... |
| 319 | ** "Bop Bop Baby" is also a catchy tune about a heartbroken man who cannot let go of a previous relationship and is upset that the girl has moved on. |
| 320 | * Prozzak's "Monday Morning" has upbeat guitar playing throughout, a fast beat... it has to be cheery, right? After all, its chorus is in a major key! '''Nope.''' Someone's murdered the narrator's best friend and he's left to struggle with the psychological aftermath |
| 321 | * "Pink Shoelaces" by Dodie Stevens is an upbeat late 50s song about a girls lover who dresses in in tan shoes with pink shoelaces, and a polka dot vest and a Panama hat. Most of the song is relatively peppy, though it does mention war, but at the very end the man gets terminally sick.. The song keeps its upbeat nature. It ''is'' a little open to interpretation as to whether the character's illness [[MinorInjuryOverreaction is really as bad as he's making it out to be]] - the last verse ends with him feeling sick and deciding to write out a will, without mentioning what the nature of his illness is or saying anything about what happened next. |
| 322 | * Hazell Dean's "Who's Leaving Who" is a typically bouncy, uptempo Music/StockAitkenWaterman dance-pop song ... about a couple drifting apart in their relationship. |
| 323 | * The song "Say That We're Sweethearts Again" is a lighthearted sounding tune from TheForties about a woman whose [[DomesticAbuse abusive]] significant other keeps on trying to dump her, even if it involves killing her. She's oblivious to the fact he hates her, and just wants to make up. |
| 324 | ** It was sung by Harley Quinn in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "Harlequinade", and fits her [[MadLove relationship with the Joker]] so perfectly that anyone who hadn't heard of it previously would assume it was written specifically for her. |
| 325 | * Afric Simone's 1975 hit "Hafanana" is an incredibly upbeat and danceable Seventies Euro-Disco tune… as long as you just don't happen to know Tsonga, which is Simone's native tongue.[[note]]The song's lyrics are often said to be in Swahili, an another Bantu language, and a ''lingua franca'' of the whole Western Africa, but while Tsonga and Swahili are somewhat similar, they're not really close and not mutually intelligible.[[/note]] After which is becomes a rather violent anti-Apartheid song. |
| 326 | * Sarah Brightman's "Once in a Lifetime" is a soft piece... about a woman experimenting with BDSM. |
| 327 | * "Papaoutai" by Stromae is ridiculously infectious and dance-worthy...except the title (more literally written as "Papa, où t'es?") translates to "Dad, where are you?" and the lyrics discuss the father's absence from the subject's life. And [[FromBadToWorse it gets worse]] -- the music video features creepy mannequins and implies that the dad is only ''emotionally'' absent, but in real life Stromae's father [[HarsherInHindsight was largely absent from his life and then was killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994]]. |
| 328 | * Liz Phair's song "Why Can't I?" opens up with talking about how the couple is meant to be and discusses them holding hands. All cute fluff, right? Except it's an IntercourseWithYou song about two people cheating on their partners. |
| 329 | * Stephanie Mabey's "The Zombie Song" is a cheery, goofy love song about a zombie [[InterspeciesRomance falling in love with a human]] during a ZombieApocalypse. |
| 330 | * "Kill My Boyfriend" by Music/NataliaKills is a very cutesy, peppy sounding song about a woman planning to kill her fiance so she can elope with another. |
| 331 | -->I'm rolling the dice, got the wind in my hair\ |
| 332 | I'm gonna kill my boyfriend, yeah\ |
| 333 | 'Cause he's only nice when there's somebody there\ |
| 334 | I'm gonna kill my boyfriend\ |
| 335 | Kill, kill kill, I'm gonna kill, kill, kill...\ |
| 336 | So we can run away just like we said\ |
| 337 | Kill, kill, kill, I'm gonna kill, kill, kill...\ |
| 338 | So we can be together like we planned |
| 339 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y4g_fy6osM Little Mix's Black Magic]] is about using a LovePotion on a guy, that is explicitly BlackMagic, to --> Change him overnight. DoubleStandardRapeSciFi. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkElfR_NPBI music video]] is about the group casting petty curses. |
| 340 | * Italian pop singer ''Alexia'' is known for her mindless dancey tunes rather than anything deep and thoughtful. Even so, "Goodbye" has a decidedly eyebrow-raising bit - she sings "I've never been so sad in all my life" in a cheery voice ''while dancing happily around''. |
| 341 | * The [[TropeCodifier quintessential]] {{Sexophone}} song, "Careless Whisper" by Music/GeorgeMichael, is really about the overwhelming guilt and shame that comes from cheating on a lover- hardly the sexiest of topics. |
| 342 | * Music/WolfAlice's song "Blush" is a TearJerker that's [[{{Irony}}all about being happy.]] "Heavenly Creatures", a chill love song, is actually this trope because the film [[Film/HeavenlyCreatures it was based off]] has the love story in question end with the pair murdering one of their mothers. |
| 343 | * Music/CarlyRaeJepsen does this every so often. Take her song First Time: |
| 344 | -->Catching tears like raindrops here in the glass\ |
| 345 | Keep them safe in case you should ever ask\ |
| 346 | Or if you'd like, we don't need to talk about it\ |
| 347 | I don't care\ |
| 348 | I will wait right here by my windowsill\ |
| 349 | For the sun to come, [[EmpathicEnvironment if it ever will]]\ |
| 350 | Everyone says I can never get my fill but I don't care |
| 351 | * Music/SoftCell tend to avert this, as does Marc Almond as a solo artist. However, there are a few exceptions: |
| 352 | ** "What?" combines an upbeat melody with lyrics in which the song's narrator begs their former lover for a second chance. |
| 353 | ** "Down in the Subway" also has an upbeat melody despite being about committing suicide on the subway tracks. |
| 354 | ** "Stories of Johnny" sounds like a radio friendly ballad, but is actually about a drug addict and was inspired by a documentary about young homeless people. The fact that Marc once performed the song with a [[KidsRock choir of schoolboys]] adds to the dissonance. |
| 355 | ** "Ruby Red" has a jaunty melody, but the lyrics are quite visceral, including a reference to a heart being wrapped in "a bouquet of barbed wire". |
| 356 | ** "The Days of Pearly Spencer" plays with this trope. The intro suggests that it's going to be a sad song. However, though the tune quickly becomes more uptempo, the lyrics describe a bleak urban landscape and a protagonist who's very much down on his luck. At the end, the melody becomes sombre, but the lyrics suggest that Pearly has somehow escaped the cycle of poverty and misery described in the previous verses. This wasn't part of David [=McWilliams=]' original song, but Almond added an extra verse so the song would end on a more hopeful note. |
| 357 | ** The version of "Tainted Love" which Marc recorded with Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra is more upbeat than the Soft Cell version, though the lyrics (which deal with conflicting emotions) remain the same. Justified as the track was recorded to mark (no pun intended) the singer's recovery from a near-fatal motorbike crash. |
| 358 | * The ultimate in bouncy pop exuberance, "Walking on Sunshine" by Music/KatrinaAndTheWaves, has an upbeat chorus, but the verse lyrics can actually be read as an ObsessionSong, either from someone in [[AllLoveIsUnrequited unrequited love]], or from someone desperately trying to rekindle an OldFlame. |
| 359 | -->''I don't want you back for the weekend, not back for a day\ |
| 360 | Baby, I just want you back, and I want you to stay'' |
| 361 | * Maria Takeuchi's viral hit "Plastic Love" is an upbeat, slightly jazzy J-pop song about how the narrator plans her interactions with strange men to the last detail so she can pump 'em and dump 'em. A guy broke her heart, but she can't even escape his memory in meaningless sex. And when the little voice at the back of her head says she's cold as ice, she ignores it. She just wants to have fun! No need to take love so seriously! [[note]]Please don't ask her why she randomly breaks out in tears.[[/note]] |
| 362 | * Vremya i Steklo's song "Kafel" ("Tile") is an upbeat, catchy song with surprisingly bittersweet lyrics. The song is even more jarring if you watch the music video, which is about a man who goes mad with grief after his girlfriend is murdered by thugs. |
| 363 | * Music/{{Steps}} occasionally does this. Aside from their cover of "Tragedy", a song by Music/TheBeeGees as mentioned earlier in this folder, there's "One for Sorrow", a very upbeat dance track about being heartbroken. |
| 364 | * Elvira T's Song "Ledyanaya" is an upbeat, happy-sounding song about a girl who feels as though she can't go on without her (possibly toxic) lover. |
| 365 | * "The Night Chicago Died" by Paper Lace is an upbeat, almost celebratory song about all the murders and corruption caused by UsefulNotes/AlCapone's rise to power and six-year reign as the effective ruler of Chicago during the early 1920s. Seriously, if you didn't listen to the lyrics and just listened to the melody, you'd think it was a party song. |
| 366 | * Angels' "My Boyfriend's Back" is a peppy '50s song about someone who's going to get beat up by the singer's angry boyfriend. |
| 367 | * "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia is a warm acoustic number about the consequences of LovingAShadow. |
| 368 | -->Nothing's fine, I'm torn\ |
| 369 | I'm all out of faith\ |
| 370 | This is how I feel\ |
| 371 | I'm cold and I am shamed\ |
| 372 | Lying naked on the floor\ |
| 373 | Illusion never changed\ |
| 374 | Into something real\ |
| 375 | I'm wide awake and I can see\ |
| 376 | The perfect sky is torn\ |
| 377 | You're a little late\ |
| 378 | I'm already torn |
| 379 | * Behind the rather gentle rhythm of "Something Better to Do" by Music/OliviaNewtonJohn lies some depressing lyrics. Namely, the speaker of the song becomes an emotional wreck, to the point that even her other loved ones are turned off by her behavior. |
| 380 | -->A shoulder to cry on\ |
| 381 | Would make me feel fine\ |
| 382 | But it's not much comfort\ |
| 383 | When I'm cryin' on mine\ |
| 384 | Friends and relations\ |
| 385 | Are running out of patience with me\ |
| 386 | I keep myself to myself\ |
| 387 | But I’m no company... |
| 388 | ** Meanwhile, her later hit "Heart Attack" is rife with saxophone blaring and if you listen closely enough, some pretty dark wording |
| 389 | --> I can't catch my breath\ |
| 390 | You must be a dream\ |
| 391 | But you're the cutest thing I've ever seen\ |
| 392 | I'm way past the point of recovery\ |
| 393 | You're gonna be the death of me |
| 394 | * Buck Fizz’s upbeat, saccharine sung, but as catchy as hell song [[https://youtu.be/l6DOGITIfAY “Land Of Make Believe,”]] from 1982, is, according to the song’s writer Pete Sinfield, meant to be a vicious take that against then British Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher, and her policies. |
| 395 | * Half the comments on the Youtube video for [[Series/AmericanIdol Clay Aiken's]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbhOVKhwO_4&ab_channel=ClayAikenVEVO "Invisible"]] are the concession that while the lyrics are basically about [[StalkerWithACrush stalking]], it's really, really catchy. |
| 396 | * Music/DJEarworm: |
| 397 | ** Subverted in "Summermash '17". The mashup starts with the lyrics "unforgettable summer vacation" over slow and gloomy instrumentals, but soon the lyrics themselves get depressing as well, despite it being a summer mashup. |
| 398 | ** Played straight in "Summermash '20". It was made during the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic and the lyrics are mostly about spending the summer locked indoors, but it still sounds summery and upbeat. |
| 399 | * Arguably one of the most stark examples of this trope is “Digging Your Scene” by The Blow Monkeys. An upbeat, funky 80s sophisti-pop tune… about a gay man who’s heard that one of his friends has recently contracted HIV/AIDS and who realises that he’s likely dying of it himself, but can’t admit it due to his own denial and self-loathing. Features such cheerful lyrics as “every day I walk alone and pray that God won’t see me” and “I know I’ll die, baby”, the latter of which is the final line of the song too. |
| 400 | * Lera Yaskevich's song "Sebye Pomoch" ("Help Myself") sounds somewhat upbeat, but is about feeling numb and apathetic while not understanding why or knowing how to deal with it. |
| 401 | --> Ничего, ничего не чувствую [[labelnote:*]]''Nothing, I feel nothing''[[/labelnote]] |
| 402 | --> Хорошо, хорошо ли, плохо ли? [[labelnote:*]]''Is this good? Is this bad?''[[/labelnote]] |
| 403 | --> Что же делать? Я не знаю… [[labelnote:*]]''What should I do? I don't know…''[[/labelnote]] |
| 404 | --> Умираю [[labelnote:*]]''I'm dying''[[/labelnote]] |
| 405 | --> Я внутри умираю [[labelnote:*]]''I'm dying inside''[[/labelnote]] |
| 406 | ** This is the singer's explanation of the song's meaning: ''"The most sensual and experienced track in this album. This is a kind of psychological portrait of a modern young person. We are covered by a wave of apathy and indifference, but we are unable to understand why and how to deal with it. In my case, this stage just had to be experienced. Here you are your own psychologist and friend. I recorded it from the first take, because how to perfect something that tears your soul and blows up your brain is not thought about in this situation."'' [[labelnote:original]]"Самый чувственный и пережитый трек в этом альбоме. Это своего рода психологический портрет современного молодого человека. Нас накрывает волной апатия и безразличие, но мы не в силах понять почему и как с этим бороться. В моем случаи этот этап просто нужно было пережить. Здесь ты сам себе психолог и друг. Я записала его с первого дубля, потому как доводить до совершенства то, что разрывает тебе душу и взрывает мозг – это не в этой ситуации."[[/labelnote]] |
| 407 | * Go West's "King of Wishful Thinking" is a high energy very upbeat and danceable tune describing the narrator moving on from a broken relationship and emotional abuse and claiming that he'll have no problem getting over things in very obvious BlatantLies. The title is what he refers to himself as since he's able to fool himself into thinking he'll be fine. |
| 408 | * Mimi Webb's "House On Fire" has a peppy, upbeat sound, but the song is about a WomanScorned plotting to set her ex's house ablaze. |
| 409 | * 5sta Family's "Karusyel" ("Carousel") is an upbeat, catchy song about the death of childhood. |
| 410 | * "Good Morning, Papa!" by Music/NuVirgos is a fast-paced pop-rock song which is a hate message to DisappearedDad. Music video suggests that the girl, after she grew up, started compensating lack of father's love by sleeping with older men. |
| 411 | * Music/RonnieTober had the Eurovision stomp pop classic "Morgen" which is a ''very'' happy sounding song.... about a man who has driven his wife away from him through workaholism and never being home when she wants him. |
| 412 | * The TitleTrack from the Youssou N'Dour album ''Set'' is a very peppy and jovial song, but when translating the lyrics from [[UsefulNotes/{{Senegal}} Wolof]] to English, it's actually a ProtestSong criticizing how much America and Russia are running themselves into the ground in the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. |
| 413 | * Alyona Shvets's "Oduvanchik" ("Dandelion") is an upbeat-sounding song about a girl who feels trapped in a toxic (possibly abusive) relationship. |
| 414 | ** Her other song "Byot - Znachit Lyubit" ("Beatings Mean Love") is another example of this trope. Though it has an upbeat tune, this song is a commentary about the normalization of abuse. |
| 415 | * One of Music/TaylorSwift "From the Vault" tracks on ''[[Music/Red2012 Red (Taylor's Version)]]'' is "Forever Winter" - an up-beat and fast tempo pop track accompanied by bright horn... overlay with lyrics about the narrator discovering her subject has prolonged depression and begging desperately for them not to "[[DrivenToSuicide go]]", even go so far as offering to be their LivingEmotionalCrutch. The song is also widely speculated to be inspired by one of Taylor's friend death by overdose. |
| 416 | * Chinese singer Lin Junjie/JJ Lin's ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV3qKiXiQgY Cries in a Distance]]'' is an adaptation from his Chinese love song ''Always Online''. Its lyrics are about children witnessing a massacre or pogrom in an undisclosed location. |
| 417 | [[/folder]] |
| 418 | |
| 419 | [[folder:Pop Punk]] |
| 420 | * Music/WeAreTheInCrowd's songs Both Sides of the Story and Rumour Mill are like this. Both are very upbeat songs but sound like full-on arguments in the lyrics between the male and female singers. Both Sides is about a deteriorating relationship with people who can't be honest with each other and Rumour Mill is about, well, rumours spreading. |
| 421 | * My Beautiful Rescue by This Providence. Upbeat fun sounding song, about a guy hurting himself, just to meet a paramedic he falls in love with. |
| 422 | * Anti-Flag's "One Trillion Dollars" has a relaxing, almost heartwarming tune...with a refrain that includes the phrase "a lot of people gonna die tonight". |
| 423 | * "Chemical Bomb" by Music/TheAquabats is a delightful, lighthearted tune in which the narrator expresses his lack of objection to his visions of world hunger, war, and Biblical apocalypse. |
| 424 | * Music/{{Blink 182}}'s "Adam's Song" is practically a suicide letter (except the last verse, in which the boy appears to have decided against killing himself). In at least one concert, they even told their fans to stop smiling, 'cause the next song's a sad one. But as Blink 182 songs up to that time go, tonally it's still pretty much their most downbeat song. |
| 425 | ** "Carousel" (after the intro) has an upbeat bouncy melody with lyrics about being very lonely, broke, and in short how much of a shock it is to leave home and start living by yourself. |
| 426 | * Music/AllTimeLow have a few examples of this, most notably "Time Bomb" and "Sick Little Games" ("I'm losing the best of me/dressed up as myself/to live in the shadow/of who I'm supposed to be" |
| 427 | * Music/FallOutBoy's "Sugar, We're Goin Down" sounds like an upbeat, happy rock song but its lyrics are actually about unrequited love, stalking ("Don't mind me, I'm watching you two from the closet, wishing to be the friction in your jeans") and the fact the guy is willing to take a bullet for his beloved. |
| 428 | * Music/GoodCharlotte's "My Bloody Valentine" is a cheery pop-punk song about a stalker murdering the boyfriend of his crush. Until the last line("All I know is that I love you tonight"), where the vocals turn into a scream and the tune crashes ''hard'' into a minor key. |
| 429 | * Though they have a reputation for [[EmoTeen songs of the sort]], Simple Plan's "I'm Just a Kid" is a somewhat [[{{Wangst}} angsty]] song sung by an unpopular school-age loser. Most people seem to fixate on that and not notice that the song's actual ''music'' is surprisingly upbeat and cheerful. |
| 430 | * Music/GreenDay's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" is an absolutely vicious breakup song, with a gentle guitar rhythm going on in the background. It was actually written by Billie Joe Armstrong when he and his girlfriend broke up. The 'Good Riddance' part was added to the title when the situation became even worse. |
| 431 | ** What's arguably their greatest hit, "Basket Case", as the [[http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:3ifexbthld6e Allmusic song review]] points, is a cheerful/sarcastic tune [[SanitySlippageSong on the paranoia and the descending sanity of the narrator.]] |
| 432 | ** Another Green Day song, "Misery", has an upbeat tune, but as the title suggests it's about misery. Though it does contain the lyric "The best of us find happiness in misery," so that might just be the point. |
| 433 | ** Green Day's "Having A Blast" is a catchy pop song about blowing up one's neighbors. |
| 434 | * Many, many, many Music/ShortStack songs. |
| 435 | * Music/BowlingForSoup: |
| 436 | ** "1985" is an upbeat song that is actually about a girl who was a teenager in 1985 and the big plans she had that never came to pass. It's certainly not the 80's tribute that the video makes it out to be. |
| 437 | ** On a similar note, their song "99 Biker Friends", the catchiest song about abusive boyfriends ever (though the end of the song has the singer planning on attacking the abuser, with the help of Creator/ChuckNorris, [[Music/FiftyCent 50 Cent]], the A-Team, obscure 80s hair metal band Music/DangerDanger, and a pair of prison guards. |
| 438 | ** "High School Never Ends" has a cheery, upbeat tune about a High School outcast who was hoping everything would be different once he graduated only to discover the Adult World is just like High School, explicitly states how much that sucks ("[[CrapsackWorld The whole damn world]] is just as obsessed"), and the variations on the final lines in the chorus emphasize how the singer is just as much a loser now as he was in High School. |
| 439 | * Eve 6's "Here's to the Night" at first listen sounds like a nostalgic ballad - until you realize it's about a one-night stand. |
| 440 | * The lyrics of many songs of the German band Blutjungs are a good example of LyricalDissonance unless you are a sick, sick person. The music of their songs is happy-sounding upbeat stuff while their lyrics are about killing children with poisoned candy on playgrounds, shooting your 15-year-old pregnant ex with a shotgun, eating the flesh off drowned bodies, brutally beating a skater to a horrible death because he made you drop your beer, slowly killing an elderly lady just to inherit her Porsche convertible, etc. |
| 441 | * The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus's "Face Down" is a bright, catchy, summery tune about confronting a girl's abusive boyfriend. |
| 442 | * Music/SarahMcLachlan's "Possession" is sung in her usual soft and sad ballad style, and describes the obsessive and violent thoughts of a stalker. |
| 443 | * Music/TheAllAmericanRejects: |
| 444 | ** "My Paper Heart" is a catchy, upbeat BreakupSong. |
| 445 | ** "Dirty Little Secret" is a more heavy, punk-oriented sound for a song about giving secrets to your loved one. |
| 446 | ** "Someday's Gone" is more mellow than many of their songs (until the last chorus), but is a very bitter song lyrically. |
| 447 | ** ''When the World Comes Down'' loved this trope, having "Breakin'" (An upbeat BreakupSong), "Believe" (A heavy PowerPop GriefSong), and "Sunshine" (A light acoustic TearJerker).' |
| 448 | * "If You could only see" by Tonic is a rather energetic and fairly upbeat song about him loving a girl even though someone (implied to be [[DatingWhatDaddyHates his parents]]) disapprove, and him wishing he could make them understand. |
| 449 | * ''Jamie All Over'' by Music/MaydayParade is a pretty upbeat and fast tempo song from a band that doesn't do that as often as you'd expect from a pop-punk band. Lyrically however it's one of their most dark, describing a pleasant dream the narrator had about spending time on a beach with his ex, but the harsh reality that it's not real and upon waking up will be entirely over. |
| 450 | * Music/AceOfHearts: |
| 451 | ** The theatrical tone, big-band style, and title of "Find Me In Your Dreams" conflict with the lyrics of the song. A guy is focused on the idea of being in love with a woman, but she points out that he's not actually paying attention to who she is. It makes her feel distant and alone, so she's imploring him to "find her in his dreams" since she doesn't want to be with him anymore. |
| 452 | --->''Find me in your dreams\ |
| 453 | 'Cause you won't see me after tonight\ |
| 454 | Dancing here with you\ |
| 455 | I never felt so alone'' |
| 456 | ** "Lights Off" has a synth jazz style and romantic-sounding chorus, which don't match the story. The singer is in a relationship with a girl, but all he wants is to just have her reciprocate his love and pay attention to him. No matter how intimate their relationship gets, she never actually gives him genuine affection. |
| 457 | * "Fenibut" by Russian singer neksusha is an upbeat, almost cutesy-sounding song about someone planning to [[SuicideByPills kill themselves in the bath by overdosing on the drug Phenibut]]. |
| 458 | [[/folder]] |
| 459 | |
| 460 | [[folder:Pop Rock]] |
| 461 | * You'd be hard-pressed to find a better or more hilarious example of this trope than Music/TimMinchin's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2udpPjxUk Song For Phil Daoust]]. |
| 462 | * For a Japanese example, listen to Memeshikute by Golden Bomber. It sounds like a J-Pop version of The Final Countdown, but the song is about a man who's been turned down by his girlfriend for being unmanly. |
| 463 | * For a German example, there's ''Deutschland" by Die Prinzen. The pop beat and most of the lyrics make it sound like this happy song is praising the greatest country in the world, Germany. Towards the end, a stealthy and cynical joke about Germany's violent history, and some wordplay that calls prideful Germans pigs reveal that the song is actually a criticism of hyper-nationalism. |
| 464 | * Some of Music/MirandaCosgrove's songs fall into this. "Brand New You" and "There Will Be Tears" have extremely joyful music about a girl taken for granted by her boyfriend (and has finally moved on or found another love). Despite "Hey You" and "What Are You Waiting For" having peppy titles, the music and lyrics are about a friend's discouragement and depression (with implied suicide attempt) and a GreenEyedEpiphany over a relationship, respectively. |
| 465 | * "[[https://lyricstranslate.com/en/xibom-bombom-xibom-bombom.html Xibom Bombom]]" by Brazilian group As Meninas sounds like a typical lighthearted Axé music song (with a lot of {{Fanservice}} on the music video), but the lyrics are actually about poverty and social inequality. |
| 466 | * {{Music/Paramore}}'s album ''After Laughter'' is a prime example of this: most of the instrumentals are upbeat 80s and 90s pop rock/synthpop, while the lyrics are about dealing with depression, anxiety, and self-loathing. Listen to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEB6ibtdPZc "Hard Times"]] to get a feel for the record. |
| 467 | * Music/TheCardigans have a knack for this, including one of their breakthrough songs, "Lovefool". Sounds like a sweet little melody with a jaunty chorus of "Love me, Love me". Except it's actually "Love me, love me, pretend that you love me/Fool me, fool me, go on and fool me" and is a song about an obsessive lover who wants her crush to just pretend that he likes her. |
| 468 | * Music/KellyClarkson's "Because of You" sounds like an empowering chick-ish ballad... but its words reflect someone emotionally scarred from a horrible relationship. |
| 469 | ** The music video helps clarify that the relationship that scarred her was ''with her father,'' who left the narrator's family when she was very young, making her unable to reach out or trust others. |
| 470 | ** "My Life Would Suck Without You" is a very upbeat rock tune about an abusive boyfriend that she keeps re-accepting. |
| 471 | * The true subject matter of "Steal My Sunshine" by Len is debatable, but most suggestions certainly don't match the bouncy tune. |
| 472 | * {{Music/Daniel Powter}}'s "Bad Day" starts off slow and thoughtful, sure, but then he's all upbeat and happy as he sings about how terribly bad the day's turned out to be. It's actually a subversion, though-- the real message of the song is that you ''shouldn't'' let your "bad days" emotionally ruin you, so the narrator finding happiness despite all the terrible things that have happened to him is entirely the point. |
| 473 | * Music/SugarRay poke fun at this with an album intro called "New Direction". The track's hard metal sound stands against lyrics like "Don't play ball in the house. Don't run with scissors. Be nice to cops." |
| 474 | * Music/TheMonkees' big hit, "Last Train to Clarksville". Upbeat tune, guy wants to get together with his girlfriend... "and I don't know if I'm ever coming home": he's been drafted. |
| 475 | ** Clarksville (Tennessee) is the actual location of a massive U.S. Army installation that sent a few divisions to Vietnam; the Monkees claimed they were not actually aware of this until after the song became popular. |
| 476 | *** This is understandable since Clarksville ranks near Springfield as one of the most prolific names for cities in the U.S. and was likely chosen because it is so common. |
| 477 | ** "Pleasant Valley Sunday" is also a very upbeat song about the emptiness of modern (well, modern in the 1960s) suburbia: "And Mr. Green, he's so serene, he's got a TV in every room..." |
| 478 | ** "Cuddly Toy" (written by the late, great Music/HarryNilsson) is a catchy song about a boy who tells a girl that she's just a slut, and he's done playing with her. |
| 479 | --->You're not the only cuddly toy |
| 480 | --->That was ever enjoyed by any boy |
| 481 | --->You're not the kind of girl to tell your mother |
| 482 | --->The kind of company you keep |
| 483 | *** Even worse. One interpretation has the "cuddly toy" is a (likely male) weakling being [[PrisonRape sexually harassed]] by [[BadassBiker biker thugs]]. |
| 484 | *** Also, the lyrics "You're not the only cherry delight / that was left in the night" implies she lost her virginity. |
| 485 | ** "Daddy's Song" from their movie "Head" (also written by Nilsson) is a happy, upbeat Broadway-style song and dance...about a man who was abandoned by his father when he was young. |
| 486 | * Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" is a bouncy, upbeat love song at first glance. It's got a great beat, snappy intelligent lyrics, the singer is pretty good, and you can dance to it! But then you realize what Rick is actually singing: that he's fallen in love with his best friend's girlfriend and wants to take her away from him. And it's not even that the best friend and the girlfriend have a rocky relationship, either. There's every indication that Jesse and the unnamed girl are perfectly happy together, yet Rick wants to break that all up and take her for his own. |
| 487 | ** It ''is'' implied that he won't get the girl and not just for the reasons above. It seems like he doesn't understand love. |
| 488 | * Mike Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow" sounds pretty upbeat, and tells us about how this girl's boyfriend is murdered. She later sees his ghost. Creepy indeed. |
| 489 | --> All she saw was a silhouette of a gun |
| 490 | --> Far away on the other side. |
| 491 | --> He was shot six times by a man on the run |
| 492 | --> And she couldn't find how to push through |
| 493 | * Music/TearsForFears combines upbeat pop music and dark lyrics in several of their most famous songs. |
| 494 | ** "Mad World" has a pop-y beat and sound. But the lyrics are about disillusionment, alienation, and depression. The overall combination sounds... well, mad. |
| 495 | -->And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, |
| 496 | -->The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had. |
| 497 | -->I find it hard to tell you 'cause I find it hard to take. |
| 498 | -->When people run in circles it's a very very mad world. |
| 499 | *** The [[CoveredUp covers]] notably removed the Lyrical Dissonance, making the overall product less 'insane' and more 'depressing'. |
| 500 | ** "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is an upbeat tune, but the lyrics are ''dark''. |
| 501 | --> "There's a room where the light won't find you/ |
| 502 | --> Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down/ |
| 503 | --> When they do I'll be right behind you/ |
| 504 | --> So glad we've almost made it/ |
| 505 | --> So sad they had to fade it/ |
| 506 | --> [[TitleDrop Everybody wants to rule the world]] |
| 507 | * Music/AvrilLavigne's "Anything But Ordinary". It's {{Emo}}. |
| 508 | --> Somebody rip my heart out |
| 509 | --> And leave me here to bleed |
| 510 | ** "He Wasn't", a beautifully happy and energetic song about a woman who dumped her ex and is feeling lonely. |
| 511 | ** Then there is "Girlfriend", a catchy ditty sung by a SpoiledBrat JerkAss who not only intends [[ClingyJealousGirl to steal another girl's boyfriend]] but have him "wrapped around her finger" because said girl is [[DieForOurShip "like, whatever"]]. And your 13-year-old niece has probably been dancing to this all day. |
| 512 | *** And her method of stealing said boyfriend? [[BeAWhoreToGetYourMan Being a better lay.]] |
| 513 | * Similarly, the Outfield's big hit, "Your Love" is sung from the viewpoint of a guy cheating on his girlfriend while she's "on vacation and she's far away". |
| 514 | * Music/BryanAdams' "Run to You" sounds, from its chorus, like just another song about a lover one can't spend enough time with, but the verses make it clear it's about the singer's mistress, whom he's trying to keep a secret from his girlfriend. |
| 515 | * "Knights of The Island Counter" by Dave Melillo, according to the iTunes store review, is "simply a summery ode to being young and enjoying life". They seem to have missed the lyrics: "I've got some problems, but we've got ten dollars, that's enough to get use wasted..." |
| 516 | * ur pretty's "Keep Riding Me", "Hit My Spot", and "Fill Me Up" blend feel-good instrumentals with ''very pornographic'' lyrics about homosexual sex, to comically jarring levels. |
| 517 | * Remember that song from ''Film/MeanGirls''? The one Cady thought was by the Music/SpiceGirls, and the one everyone remembers as the ''Film/MeanGirls'' song? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VE5satK-PU It's about girls in L.A. on meth.]] A lot of Katy Rose's songs are like this, reflecting her own troubled past. |
| 518 | * Zager And Evans followed up their much more well-known "In The Year 2525" with "Mister Turnkey", a bouncy harmony-filled folk rock song about a repentant rapist killing himself in jail by nailing his hand to the wall ("Mr. Turnkey, there's been a rape in Wichita Falls / Mr. Turnkey, I'm sitting here crying in my coveralls"). |
| 519 | * Music/{{Busted}}'s song "Crashed the Wedding", although the title sounds like it might be a metal song, is actually sung in a faintly cheerful style. The main Lyrical Dissonance is that, in this same cheerful tone, part of the last chorus goes "I might as well forget her and walk away, just glad I crashed the wedding." Not exactly major, but noticeable if you're actually listening to the lyrics, not the music. |
| 520 | * Pink (or 'Music/{{Pink}}', if you prefer) has a bouncy, upbeat Top 40 song. It's called "Please Don't Leave Me". Wait, it gets worse. The song is about a violently abusive relationship - as sung from the point of view ''of the abuser''. |
| 521 | -->You're my perfect little punching bag... |
| 522 | ** Especially when you see the music video. It's Pink going {{Yandere}} at its finest. |
| 523 | * Metro Station's "Shake It" is a nu-wave rocker that at first sounds like it's about dancing, but a closer listen reveals the lyrics are really about IntercourseWithYou. |
| 524 | ** "Disco" trumps it. Cheery dance beat, check, first lines of the chorus "Oh-oh, she's dancing/At the disco"... Next lines? "Oh-oh, she's dying/On the dancefloor." |
| 525 | ** "I Hate Society" is also a great example. It's reminiscent of Music/OneDirection's hit "What Makes You Beautiful," but the lyrics are about deteriorating mental health and, well, ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. |
| 526 | * Only the Spanish group No Me Pises Que Llevo Chanclas[[note]](something like "Don't step on me I'm wearing sandals")[[/note]] could write a song about the pain of losing a beloved pet (in this case, a singing canary) [[RefugeInAudacity and make it absolutely]] HILARIOUS. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1QYEb2XZOc Here it is, the name is "El Canario" ("The Canary")]] |
| 527 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXyEBF4VmYs "In A Row"]] by The Vincent Black Shadow is a catchy, upbeat song... about [[WarIsHell war]]. |
| 528 | -->So in a row they line up to die |
| 529 | -->Breathe in the air for just one last time |
| 530 | -->And try to be strong while their mothers cry |
| 531 | -->So in a row they line up to die |
| 532 | * [[Music/TheZombies The Zombies']] album ''Music/OdesseyAndOracle'' has "Care of Cell 44" - a bright, bouncy tune where Colin Blunstone breathily sings of waiting to see his girl again. The lyrics are in fact cheery and anticipatory...then the last line of the first verse says "And then you can tell me about your prison stay." It's never stated what put her in jail, but another line "Kiss and make up and it will be so nice" implies he was on the receiving end of it. [[note]] WordOfGod has since confirmed that she stole his chequebook (and other friends and relations chequebooks too) and had been writing bad cheques all over the county until she got caught [[/note]] |
| 533 | ** The Zombies have quite a bit of this. "She's Not There", arguably their biggest hit, is a wonderfully peppy, delicate song... with lyrics apparently from the point of view of a murderer becoming progressively more and more unhinged during his interrogation as he tries (pretty badly, as he slips up and basically reveals he's lying in the chorus) to convince the police that he has no idea who the girl was and [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial her body is definitely not where they've been searching]]. |
| 534 | * {{Music/McFly}}'s "The Ballad Of Paul K". A calm, somewhat uplifting-sounding song... until you take notice of the lyrics and realise the song is about a man suffering a mid-life crisis. |
| 535 | * Spanish band Pereza's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y0GsjNXBsI&feature=related Estrella Polar]]" sounds like a happy go lucky song but if you translate it in English, the lyrics are far from happy. |
| 536 | * The song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF_NoPqBlDs She's Coming Down Again]]" by Music/ThePosies mentions doing drugs and the word "Shitty". |
| 537 | * "Three Lions" by Baddiel, Skinner and the Lightning Seeds, which was used as the official team song for the England squad in the FIFA World Cup of 1996, is a mild case of this; it's got very anthem-like, optimistic music, but the lyrics, while not exactly downbeat, are a bit more ambiguous than you'd expect from a song designed to inspire the team and supporters to victory; at very least, it's less "we're gonna win this one!" and more cautiously going "well, we ''might'' win this one..." |
| 538 | ** Even the refrain of “Coming home...” isn’t referring to the fact that England team are going to bring the trophy home by winning it, but instead to the fact a major international tournament was being held in the country instead. Something that most football (soccer) fans, and the organisers of the 2018 World Cup (the snippet was blasted out every time England scored a goal), didn’t seem to get.... |
| 539 | * First Class' 1974 hit "Beach Baby" is a peppy, bouncy tune about a man reminiscing with his high-school girlfriend, only to find out in the last verse that "I guess you don't remember anything." |
| 540 | * "Up The Junction" by Squeeze, an upbeat, jangly song about a three-year relationship that ends badly (and the narrator knows it's his fault). |
| 541 | * "Happy Hour" by the Housemartins. It's a fast-paced, jaunty tune, and it's got the word "happy" right there in the title ... and it's about how the singer doesn't want to be here, is surrounded by jerks, and the fact he's ''expected'' to be happy is just the icing on the cake. |
| 542 | -->It's happy hour again, don't believe it, |
| 543 | -->'Cos they speak a different language and it's never really happened to me. |
| 544 | * "Woman in the Wall" by the Beautiful South, whom the Housemartins evolved into. It sounds from the chorus like an anthem of empowerment ... but when you listen to the verses, you realize the title woman is in the wall with "no voice at all" because ''her husband murdered her and hid the body there''. |
| 545 | * Music/JimmyBuffett's "Margaritaville" has everything you need for a fun summer vacation: calypso-style music, beaches, margaritas... and a severely depressed alcoholic beach bum who drinks himself into a blackout while gradually coming to the realization that he has no one to blame but himself for the sorry state of his life. |
| 546 | * Music/ZZWard's single "Put the Gun Down" is a fun, peppy, bouncy, upbeat futile plea to the woman Ward knows will steal her man. |
| 547 | * "Timothy" by The Buoys is a happy little sounding tune about three miners trapped in a cave mine [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty resorting to cannibalism]](although the band’s label, Scepter Records, tried to claim that Timothy was actually a mule). |
| 548 | * Julie Brown produced a number of dissonant works, but the ultimate has to be "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun," about a girl who, after being voted homecoming queen, [[AxesAtSchool goes on a shooting spree.]] |
| 549 | * The song "För Kung och Fosterland" (For King and Country) by the Swedish artist Magnus Uggla may sound like some kind of patriotism song but the lyrics are a clear satire of consumer society. |
| 550 | -->We live every hour like as if everything will run out\ |
| 551 | We gladly ignore the critique of our excess\ |
| 552 | Always have to get replacement bags, shoes, and furniture.\ |
| 553 | Tomorrow one could be dead.\ |
| 554 | One day the whole world could be ablaze, so go for king and country.\ |
| 555 | Buy more, spend more, as much as you can. For king and country. |
| 556 | * Music/{{Echt}}'s "Wie geht es dir so?": Upbeat [[BreakupSong song about somebody who is unable to get over their ex]]. |
| 557 | * Kim Wilde's [[https://youtu.be/qRiMaMOSIuY Solstice]] is instrumentally an uplifting, lighter-raising PowerBallad, but lyrically a [[TearJerker tear-jerking]] GriefSong about [[TogetherInDeath a couple dying in a suicide pact]]. |
| 558 | * Music/{{Noah|Indonesia}}'s "Mendekati Lugu" is an unusually groovy and upbeat song for the band and talks about the suffering of someone putting love over all. |
| 559 | [[/folder]] |
| 560 | |
| 561 | [[folder:Synthpop]] |
| 562 | * Music/{{Alphaville}} has some cheery-sounding songs with serious or dark themes: |
| 563 | ** "Forever Young" is about the Cold War and the looming possibility of nuclear war. |
| 564 | ** "Summer in Berlin" throws some jabs at the East German dictatorship. |
| 565 | ** "In The Mood" is a retelling of Creator/StephenKing's novel ''Literature/TheShining''. |
| 566 | * Music/Eiffel65's "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" is a notoriously addictive Eurobeat track about a lonely, depressed person living in a world that only has one color. |
| 567 | * Music/TheHumanLeague's "Don't You Want Me" is a bright, upbeat synthpop duet about an entitled, abusive, and predatory male partner who believes that he made his girlfriend's career and is owed her loyalty, and her desire to escape from him. |
| 568 | * The odd drone/monotone voice (er, it's better than it sounds) of The Magnetic Fields' lead vocalist makes everything sound dissonant, from "I Wish I Had An Evil Twin" (exactly what it sounds like) to "I Don't Want to Get Over You" (listing all of the things he could do to forget a lover). |
| 569 | * "Enola Gay" by OMD is a bouncy electropop dancefloor filler, with an incredibly catchy synth hook - and lyrics about the bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, in case the title wasn't a giveaway. |
| 570 | ** Most of their music is bouncy electropop. But...hell, just listen to the lyrics of "If You Leave." |
| 571 | * Wolfsheim - "Once In A Lifetime". The lyrics involve the singer [[RageAgainstTheHeavens cursing God]] for taking away his wife and son, possibly contemplating suicide. The singer's pregnant wife was killed in a hurricane in 1998? while he was on tour. |
| 572 | * "It's a Sin" by the Music/PetShopBoys. Epic dance tune about how "everything I long to do, no matter where or when or who... [is] a sin". (It can probably be interpreted as Neil Tennant writing about being gay and growing up Catholic, so...) |
| 573 | ** "What Have I Done to Deserve This?": |
| 574 | --> You always wanted a lover |
| 575 | --> I only wanted a job |
| 576 | --> I've always worked for a living |
| 577 | --> How am I gonna get through? |
| 578 | --> I come here looking for money (got to have it) |
| 579 | --> And end up living with love |
| 580 | --> Now you've left me with nothing (can't take it) |
| 581 | --> How am I gonna get through? |
| 582 | -->''[later]'' |
| 583 | --> We don't have to fall apart, we don't have to fight |
| 584 | --> We don't need to go to Hell and back every night |
| 585 | ** "Casanova In Hell" |
| 586 | ** "Being Boring" sounds like it's recalling the singer and his lover's younger days, invoking a famous line about Gertrude Stein, referenced in the first verse[[note]]"She was never bored, because she was never boring"[[/note]] And it is ... but the third verse darkens things by recalling how many of their friends from those times have died from AIDS[[note]]"''Some are here and some are missing / In the 1990s''"[[/note]] |
| 587 | * "Spring Love" by Stevie B. Driving freestyle synthpop floor filler, then the lyrics: |
| 588 | --> But something changed, the season came to an end |
| 589 | --> I had to leave you, and that's where my heartache began |
| 590 | * Eddy Grant's 1982 "Electric Avenue" is a bouncy electro-reggae number... about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brixton_riot Brixton riots]] that happened only a year earlier, and the [[UsefulNotes/ATouchOfClassEthnicityAndReligion broader injustices faced by poor Britons generally and poor Black British people particularly]]. |
| 591 | ** When it was released in the US, most people heard only the chorus ("''We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue / And then we're gonna take it higher''") and concluded it was a party anthem. |
| 592 | * Music/{{Nena}}'s "99 Luftballons" ("99 Red Balloons" in English) has a really peppy, fast beat. And it's about what would happen if some kids released 99 balloons into the air, to be picked up by the Soviet Union's early-warning system. The result? Nuclear war. (This is subverted in the last verse -- revealing the singer to be a survivor of the war, traveling the barren earth -- which is appropriately slow and melancholy.) |
| 593 | * ''Paradise'' by Future Perfect is an energetic, even trancy, synthpop track, then the lyrics get kinky, with lines such as "[[IntercourseWithYou You wanna take a ride with me?]]" and worse, "[[ObligatoryBondageSong I'll tie your arms down, baby]]". |
| 594 | * "One Foot" by {{Music/Fun}}: Exuberant, swaggering allegretto melody (aside from a single plaintive bridge) with a lot of brass; lyrics that positively ''drip'' bitter cynicism. Hell, the entire album is a guy who keeps drifting in and out of a relationship after his mother died and his career became more taxing on him. |
| 595 | * ''Disney {{Eurobeat}}'', a series of four albums released in the early 2000s, gave numerous Disney songs the Eurobeat treatment. Needless to say, some of them, while still sounding quite good, sometimes come off as quite different from their original versions: |
| 596 | ** The official {{Eurobeat}} version of the ''Franchise/WinnieThePooh'' theme song. It uses the same warm lyrics as the original song... accompanied by a fast-paced and very lively melody. |
| 597 | ** Similarly, the {{Eurobeat}} cover of "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOT_qu6f07I Wherever You Are]]" from ''WesternAnimation/PoohsGrandAdventure'', which sets the song's [[TearJerker heart-breaking lyrics]] to a hyper upbeat melody like the other ''Pooh'' song. |
| 598 | ** "[[WesternAnimation/ToyStory2 When Somebody Loved Me]]" [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjCBakIzmII also got the Eurobeat treatment]], and the difference between the heart-rending and somber original version and the much peppier Eurobeat cover is somewhat jarring. |
| 599 | * Synth-funk band D-Train's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmEgxqSnHXQ cover]] of Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By", a song in which the singer tells their ex to pretend not to notice them crying should they ever run into each other, might possibly have been the [[Music/OutKast "Hey Ya!"]] of TheEighties. |
| 600 | * Boney M may be the definition of upbeat music... but one of their hits is a biblical lament from [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity the Babylonian captivity]] where the lyrics taken from the original Psalm straight up say "we wept". (Rivers of Babylon) |
| 601 | * "Happiness" by Goldfrapp has a blissful-sounding melody and an arrangement that's somewhere between synth pop and BaroquePop: While the first verse warmly invites the listener on a journey to find "harmony and peace of mind" and "the real inner you", the second verse starts hinting at a ScamReligion ("we can see your troubled soul, give us all your money, we'll make it better"). |
| 602 | * A lot of songs by {{Music/Russya}} fall under this, especially "Black Rose" and "Forgive me, Mommy." |
| 603 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POg6fWRv6sc&ab_channel=Queenie-Lou Queenie-Lou's "Never Be the Same"]] is an upbeat synth-pop tune, whose 1st verse is about the devastating bushfires of 2020, and whose second verse is about the influx of COVID-19. |
| 604 | [[/folder]] |
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